JEFFREY BANKS, DESIGNER AND AUTHOR
in buying offices to dealing with customers on selling floors. Today, trainees spend all day in a cubicle looking at spread sheets. We’ve got lots of talented young people not being properly trained. We’re all entrenched in a system of institutionalized racism and the only way to change it is to talk about it. I don’t have the ultimate solution but I’m willing to talk about it and I’m optimistic that things will actually change. Just look at the diversity of protesters these past few months—across the country and around the world. Young, old, Black, Asian, Latino; in some cities, the protestors were mostly white! I believe people are really sick of the injustice and that we’re finally turning the tide. It’s no longer us vs. them; it’s all us.
MR MAGAZINE AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2020
ONE RACE-RELATED experience that’s stayed with me dates back to when I was 17. I’d just started working for Ralph Lauren who took a chance on me right out of high school. (We’d met when I was selling clothes at Britches of Georgetown in Washington, D.C.; I loved Ralph’s designs and sold a lot of them. We’d have great conversations about the history of men’s style.) At the time (August 1971), Ralph was just launching women’s fashion and wanted to get in with Stuart Kreisler, a women’s fashion mogul at 550 Seventh Avenue. So, Ralph sent me to 550 to check it out. It was a hot humid summer day and I was wearing black linen pants, Gucci loafers, Halston sunglasses, an open-collar shirt and a sportcoat. The elevator operator took one look at me and told me I’d have to use the freight elevator. I watched as other guys wearing open collar shirts got on the regular elevator and I realized for the first time that I was targeted because of my skin color. Why are there are so few designers of color in our industry? For one thing, it’s so difficult for Black designers to get financing. When I started out, applications for bank loans were coded with a C (for Colored). But it’s not always racism. I meet many young Black designers who are talented artists but don’t know the business side. Backers are looking for commercially salable product, not art. The buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue doesn’t care about race or gender, only whether or not the stuff will sell. In industry first needs to be cognizant of the a precarious economy, banks are nervous imbalance. Why aren’t more people like about backing unknowns of any color. Bill Gates getting involved to help diverse And who’s out there to teach these talented communities own businesses? A good young people how to run a business, how business model is Shinola in Detroit: with a to do a 5- to 10-year plan? depressed car industry, they figured out what I’m particularly proud of the CFDA else could be made in America and hired Incubator program that gives emerging people from the community designers free showroom/atelier needed jobs, training space for a year. Smart landlords “IT’S NO who them to be self-sufficient. recognize that this will bring Retailers also need to revamp income-bearing tenants down LONGER training programs. In the the road; we need more people early ‘70s, executive training, looking toward the future. US VS. although hard work for little And retailers need to step up to the plate: instead of knocking THEM…” pay, was a strong foundation for a retail career. Trainees off name designers, why not give were exposed to all aspects of young people a chance to shine. the job, from curating product To attain diversity, the fashion
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